U.N. NEEDS OUR SUPPORT, NOT A UNILATERALIST

President Bush's nomination of John Bolton as the U.S. representative at the United Nations comfirms a continuation of a go-it-alone policy contemptuous of international organizations, law and treaties. A policy of pre-emptive war and world domination unhampered by the restraints mutually agreed upon at the formation of the United Nations in San Francisco -- at the behest of the United States -- after the death, destruction and genocide of World War II.

On Feb. 3, 1994, Bolton said: "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and when we can get others to go along."

Nine years later, Secretary of State Colin Powell destroyed his reputation for integrity with a PowerPoint litany of deceptive and unfounded charges against Iraq's Saddam Hussein at the U.N. General Assembly. U.N. members representing world opinion responded with polite hand-clapping for Powell, but with thunderous applause for the French foreign minister, who pleaded for continuation of U.N. inspections.

By invading Iraq, Bush shared Bolton's analysis, for the U.N. decision did not "suit our interest" and we couldn't "get others to go along."

Since his college days, Bolton has been a strident critic of international treaties and organizations. Although the Constitution provides that international treaties have the full force of domestic law on governmental actions, Bolton said in a 1997 Wall Street Journal article, "In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations."

During the Clinton administration, he led the fight against the International Criminal Court and U.N. advocacy of population controls, global warming threats and other environmental issues. He earned public notoriety by his appearance in Tallahassee during the 2000 election-recount controversy, announcing himself with: "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team and I'm here to stop the vote."

He joined the Bush administration in 2001 and proceeded to eliminate or weaken international treaties on land-mines, small-arms trading, child soldiers, biological weapons, nuclear weapons testing and missile defense. He forced the dismissal of the director of the Convention on Biological Weapons, who advocated a stronger verification protocol which could have exposed Iraq's lack of WMD.

He led U.S. abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and renunciation of President Clinton's signing of the treaty on the International Criminal Court. He successfully opposed ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by Clinton.

He charged Cuba with having a biological weapons program, a charge unsupported by any other American arms control or intelligence agency.

Japan, China, South Korea and Russia negotiated openings to North Korea including trips by North Korean President Kim Jong Il to Beijing and Moscow and Japan's prime minister to North Korea. Their success led to six-party talks including the U.S. and South Korea. John Bolton, representing the U.S., so insulted North Korea that they demanded his removal and the State Department complied.

He stood with Sen. Jesse Helms in his effort to defund the U.N. by refusing to pay U.S. dues. He again attempted to have U.S. dues withheld after the United Nations refused to authorize the Iraqi invasion.

On the day this was written, former U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations spoke to the House Foreign Relations Committee. Their consesus was that the United Nations is essential not only to world peace but our security and that it needed to be strengthened, not weakened or considered irrelevant. As an example, the only ray of sunshine in the Iraqi quagmire is the Iraqi election successfully organized by the United Nations at America's request.

Bolton's career has been marked by an obsessive dislike for international treaties, negotiations or law. His confirmation can only increase world unease as to America's intentions. The United Nations needs our support, not the disruptive and negative attacks and actions that John Bolton personifies.

Jim Mullins is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., and a resident of Delray Beach.